


House of Sin

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-08-23 06:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Temptation walks through the doors of his office, smile bright and laughter hanging about his head. He sits across from Merlin, lips curled into a smirk. He sits, slouched low and knees spread wide. He taps his fingers across his thighs. Merlin waits, but temptation doesn’t speak. Just jerks his eyebrows up.





	House of Sin

Merlin justifies his actions easily. Simplistically. He doesn’t look, he doesn’t touch, he doesn’t  _ taste.  _ He sinks to his knees each night, bows his head. He doesn’t stick to the child’s prayers, but bares his soul as best as he can. He thinks these are the moment when he is meant to confess.

He tries, when he thinks about temptation. He thinks about the golden shine of it; the way it might feel beneath his fingers, smooth and silken. He thinks about the smell, spicy and salty and summery. He doesn’t dream about the taste of it, the sound of it. That’s too close to giving in.

His knees burn by the end of it, the carpet coarse against his skin. He massages the angry red indentations and counts his blessings. Tonight, he is thankful for cool breeze of the night and the soft sheets his mother bought him before he left.

He dreams of redwoods and blue skies and golden air.

When he wakes up, he sinks immediately back to his knees and prays for the sleep he couldn’t avoid.

```

Temptation walks through the doors of his office, smile bright and laughter hanging about his head. He is across from Merlin, lips curled into a smirk. He sits, slouched low and knees spread wide. He taps his fingers across his thighs. Merlin waits, but temptation doesn’t speak. Just jerks his eyebrows up.

Merlin sighs. He steeples his fingers, asks God for strength, and regards  _ Temptation _ .

Temptation licks his lips, cherry red and shiny with spit. Merlin closes his eyes, tries to remember the verses he read this morning.

“I’m here for confession.”

Merlin furrows his own brows, regards Temptation with little amusement. “We are not Catholic. Your confessions are your own.”

“Yes, yes, they belong to God and I alone.” Temptation leans forward, balances his elbows on his knees. “The thing is, Pastor, we’re meant to confess to those we’ve wronged as well. Meant to clear the air, make amends.”

Merlin nods, lowers his hands to his desk and studies his fingers. Ink is smeared on his left ring finger, from what he’s not sure. It’s blue, shaped a bit like the dragon on Temptation’s sweatshirt.

“What,” he pauses, rolls the the thoughts around his tongue, trying to figure out exactly what he wants to ask. “Have you wronged me?”

Temptation grins. He stands up and balances his hands on Merlin’s desk, framing Merlin’s own. He leans down, his face too close to Merlin’s. His breath smells like cilantro and cheese. “Oh Pastor, we’ve wronged each other.” He winks, waits a moment longer, and then he slinks out of the room whistling hymns.

```

Merlin stands at a pulpit, but he doesn’t speak. He’s always dreamt of standing here, of watching people respond to his words, his ideas. When he found this church, he only had one goal; to guide people, to help them find the peace he has. Or rather, the peace he once had.

He runs his fingers over the words scribble into his notebook, adjust his tie, studies the light glimmering over the baptismal pit.

The doors open and Merlin closes his eyes. He mouths the words to his favorite hymn, prays that whoever it leaves him be.

“Practising, Pastor?”

Temptation rings in his ears and Merlin curses his own foolishness. “You’re here rather late.”

“I never attend first service.”

Temptation slinks up the steps, leans over the podium from the back. He’s too close to Merlin,  _ always too close  _ to Merlin. “Yes, I’m aware.”

Temptation reaches for the notebook, a hot brush against Merlin’s fingers, but Merlin is too quick. He snatches the book back and steps away from the podium. He knows his eyes are wide and his chest is heaving.

Temptation raises his hands. “I guess I’ll wait for next week’s sermon, then, Preach.” He waits a moment, like he’s waiting for Merlin to speak, and then he sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets. He scowls, kicks his feet across the stage, and lets the door slam behind him.

```

Temptation walked through the doors of Merlin’s church with scabbed knees and a missing tooth front a center. His parents hadn’t had much hope or faith. They’d simply been looking for a place to stow away an active child.

Merlin hadn’t wanted to mentor the boy, had known from the start that something was different about this boy. But he was a young preacher, foolhardy and absolute in his faith. He’d welcomed them, made them comfortable.

Temptation’s parents worked long hours and Merlin found himself entertaining the boy more and more. He was a bright student. Interested and receptive to all of Merlin’s teachings. His questions though, always swirled about the grey areas of morality, of right and wrong.

He asked Merlin question sometimes, about the foundation of his faith. Of why he believed and worshiped.

He misses the days when things were black and white, were absolutes.

Temptation knocks on his door most evenings, brings his Scriptures and his questions. He sits on Merlin’s coarse carpet, chews the strings of his hoodie and ask, “So if it’s wrong, why do we do it?”

“Because we are human.”

Temptation scoffs.

Merlin pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ours isn’t to know everything. We are to trust and to try.”

Temptation scoffs. He scrambles up and sinks into the couch cushion on his knees. “The whole of the world at our hands! And you don’t want to question it? To discover it?”

“We do explore it, but we explore it with boundaries.”

Temptation sinks against the couch. “We don’t explore it. We contain it. We bind it to ancient rules and interpretations and the fallacy of human understanding.” He stands up in a huff, knocking over Merlin’s tea. He doesn’t seem to notice. “The parents are away. My bags are already in the spare room.”

Merlin groans. He begins to mop up his beverage and then he stops and sinks to his knees. He doesn’t pray, doesn’t know what words to use, but when he soak up the amber liquid, he still feels as though strength is just beyond his finger tips.

```

The first time Temptation stayed over, Merlin hadn’t known how to console the child. He’d wept so long, so hard, that he’d made himself ill. Merlin had tried to massage his belly, to rock him, but at the end of the night they had both slumped into Merlin’s bed exhausted and heartbroken.

When they’d awoken the next morning, Temptation had been in better spirits.

It had started an endless series of nightly wailing and morning smiles. Merlin had always expected him to grow out of it.

In some ways he had.

Now his door creaks open at 2 a.m. The covers shift, cool night air hitting Merlin’s skin. Temptation is a warm presence as his back, a hand that slips across his belly, a face that nuzzles into his neck. He breathes heavy against Merlin’s hair, fingers flexing. Once, Merlin tried to explain it away, to reason with himself and the universe and God. Now he just holds still until Temptation’s breath evens out and his hand goes limp.

It’s a always long night for Merlin. No amount of recited blessings or proverbs ever calms him.

```

When Merlin wakes, his bed is empty. It takes him too long to realize how wrong his disappointment is.

When he slips into the kitchen there are eggs frying on the stove and tea already steaming in a mug.

“Do you believe in the afterlife?”

Merlin rolls his eyes as he plates eggs. “Do you ever listen to me when I’m behind the pulpit?”

“No, I’m always too distracted.”

“I should ban cell phones in the chapel.”

Temptation snorts. “Believe me Pastor, my attention is definitely on that pulpit.”

Merlin coughs, pounds his chest to redirect the eggs.

```

“Pastor, why do you believe?” Temptation is curled in Merlin’s favorite armchair. He thinks he is surreptitiously wiping the caramel from his fingers into the cloth, but Merlin’s become quite adept at removing sticky substances from his house.

“I suppose because I’ve never been given a reason not to.” He watches as Temptation sucks on his fingers, as his tongue curls around them.

“That’s a cheap answer. Aren’t you supposed to have had some life altering moment where God’s voice rained down from the heavens and touched your ears like silver feathers?”

“That’s ridiculous.” But Merlin ponders the point as he flips through the book of Isaiah. “I suppose it’s because it makes sense to me. It gives reason to the unreasonable. It gives me direction. Purpose. A path to follow.”

Arthur throws a piece of sticky popcorn up in the air, catches it in his mouth. “So you’re a spineless twit who needs someone to tell you what to do. How to think,  _ feel. _ ”

Merlin frowns. “I think my own thoughts.”

“Sure. But like, in the realm of what is and isn’t wrong.”

“Belief doesn’t mean I don’t do wrong.” He whispers it, but Temptation has been waiting for the first sign of weakness. His ears perk up, his whole body shifts towards Merlin.

“Tell me, Preacher. What’s your poison?”

Merlin studies him, the pout of his lips, the square of his shoulders. The softness of his belly peaking in the gap between his jeans and his shirt. He can’t answer him.

Temptation doesn’t need an answer though. He saunters over and settles his knees on either side of Merlin. Caramel coated fingers grip Merlin’s jaw and it should be so much grosser than it is. “C’mon preacher, confess to me.”

Merlin shuts his eyes. This is his home. The one place where he can be himself. Where everything he says and does is not put on display. He keeps his vices hidden in the back of the shelves. His thoughts are his own, and when they stray he bends to his knees and lets the carpet clear his mind.

In all his time though, he has never confessed out loud. It’s always been a private thing between him and God. His own shame to carry, until he’s prepared to repent.

“I think  perhaps we should retire for the night.” He tries to push the young male off his lap, but in the last decade he’s gotten taller, heavier.

Temptation settles himself more firmly in Merlin’s lap. He lowers his face until his eyes are boring into Merlin’s, until their breaths are mingling. When he speaks, Merlin can feel it against his lips.

“Please, don’t do this.”

“Isn’t the point of most of your messages that ‘God forgives?’”

“Yes, but He expects us to at least try to and abide by His rules.”

Temptation runs his nose down the side of Merlin’s neck. He tangles stick fingers in the hair at the back of Merlin’s head. “Did God not create us in His own image?”

“Well, yes.” Merlin needs something to cling to, something to steady himself. All that’s available are hips still covered by the last remnants of childhood.

“And He instilled His perfect love in us?”

“Yes.” There are fingers on his collarbones, a hardness he won’t process digging into his hip.

“Preacher. Do you really think God would deny love?”

“You’re too young to understand the meaning of that word.”

Temptation’s grip bruises his jaw, his kiss is a hard pressure against his lips, sharp teeth and a tongue begging for entrance. Merlin breaks, for just a moment, inhales the flavors of caramel and salt and tea.

When they pause for breath, Merlin stands up quickly, knocking the boy to the ground. He runs to his room, locks himself behind his doof. He sinks to his knees, hands curled in the sheets. He doesn’t pray, not out loud nor in his mind. He doesn’t repent or beg for forgiveness  

Whether it is because he doesn’t know what he’s begging for, or because he isn’t sure he’s committed a sin, he doesn’t know.

```

Temptation avoids Merlin for months, and Merlin thinks perhaps the storm has passed. He hasn’t sunk to his knees since that night though, hasn’t preached on forgiveness. He’s studying his Scriptures, challenging his own beliefs. God, he’s decided, is a cruel creator.

He wants to believe in the inherent goodness of man. Wants to buy into the hope he has been promised. He wants to know that if he caves, if he allows himself this one indulgence, that he is not condemning himself, spitting in the face of his beliefs.

He wants to know that where his heart leads him is not destruction, but paradise. Nothing in all of his studies has told him yes or no. They give him no guidance.

He knows what the congregation thinks, what he’s been told the verses mean, but he can find no answer, no absolute truth.

God, he decides, is perhaps telling him he needs to sort this one out on his own.

He stands at the pulpit one Sunday, and studies the congregation. They’re fools, the lot of them. They follow him around as though he has all the answers, as if he is some divine being. Some moral wizard. He’s just a man, foolish as they are, still searching for the answers.

He closes his scriptures and with his head bowed he announces, “I’m resigning.”

He’s never been more pleased at the pious sensibilities of believers as he leaves them behind in stunned silence.

```

He’s packing up the last of his things when Temptation slips through his door.

“So you’re not going to say goodbye?”

Merlin folds an old hoodie and sets it aside. “I told the whole congregation goodbye.”

“Don’t give me that bull, Preacher.”

Merlin’s hands shake, and he steadies them with a book. “I’m no longer a preacher.”

He hears a scoff. “You’ll always be a Preacher. Isn’t that your thing? As long as you have someone to teach, you’re always doing your job.”

Merlin turns, places his hand against a face he knows too well. “Who do I have left listening to me?”

Temptation turns into his hand, kisses his palm. “I’ve always listened to you, Merlin.”

“You’ve always defied me, challenged me.”  Merlin fall’s onto the bed and buries his head into his hands. “I’m a fraud, Arthur.”

Arthur sinks to his knees so that he can cup Merlin’s face, so that he can force him to look at him. “What do you believe in, Merlin?”

“I believe in God.” He pauses, studies eyes that have seen too much for their years. “And I believe in you.”

Arthur smiles at him. “Isn’t that enough?”

Merlin can feel tears gathering as his shakes his head. He pulls Arthur towards him, holds him close and kisses his hair. “No, boy, it isn’t enough. I’m leaving. I’m…”

He isn’t sure what he’s going to do, where is going to go. He needs to get out though.

“Take me with you.”

Merlin kisses his temple. “I can’t do that. You have school, and your parents, and your future to think about.”

“My future is with you, Preacher. It always has been. My parents have never missed me. And what’s a year off?”

Merlin has not heard God’s voice in many years, but something small, something quiet urges him to give in.

Arthur pushes everything of the bed, forces Merlin onto his back. Everything after that is a mess of fingers and tongues, heat and spit and confessions. He takes from Arthur, takes everything he’ll give to Merlin. He makes him beg, makes him sweat, makes him a weeping mess.

In the morning, he sinks  to his knees and he prays. There is no confession, no penance. He is full of thanks and supplication.

```

Arthur shows him a house online, a small little one bedroom in a coastal town.

“They’ve built a church, but they haven’t found a Preacher yet.”

Merlin chases the bruises dancing down Arthur’s spine. “Our own little private sanctuary.”

Arthur laughs against him, bites at Merlin’s neck. “Our little house of sin, eh Preacher?”

Merlin slaps his butt with a laugh. "Paradise."

 


End file.
